Tokyo, Sept. 1.
To-day is Earthquake Memorial Day in Japan.
Everyone, foreigners and Japanese alike, mourn the dead torn roughly from them by one of the most stupendous cataclysms in recorded jay is the seventh anniversary of the great earthquake which smote Yokohama in the dust and wreaked considerable havoc over the greater part of down-town Tokyo.
As the clock points to three minutes to twelve mid-day, all traffic ceases, people respectfully unbare themselves and mutter a prayer, church bells toll, temple gongs boom, sirens whistle and tears are shed, In the foreign clubs, and doubtless in Japanese homes and meeting places too, personal narratives of first-hand evidence relating to the disaster, are once again retailed, for this great natural calamity, lik the great war, is something "tha: will not be easily erased from the minds of those who were fated to go through it, or from those who Host their kith and kin, Almost everyone who was in Japan at the time has some individual story to tell, some trivial perhaps, but with the' power of making the picture re-live and of recreating that dreadful atmosphere when two big cities were blazing fiercely and their populations were helpless in panic stricken confusion before the abnormal blow that so suddenly struck one and all.
The Arrival of Help concrete evidence of help from outside coming became known—aod how long these hours seemed to be, all the more so since people in, ked with anxiety for ind relatives in Yoko hama and vice versa, The first authentic indication to people in Tokyo—to foreigners at any rate—that the United States fleet was Tokyo Bay was when a dusty, unwashed and soot-begrimed "gob" entered the Imperial Hotel September 3 and asked to be directed. to the American embassy. Ho had walked from Shibaura to the Imperial amidst smouldering embers, debris, dust, dirt and the]
To a number of us, Stan ey's: "Dr, Livingstone, I presumey was not less electric, The first foreign boat to render assistance, however, British, the Empress of Australia, whi skipper, Captain S. Robinson, was the recipient of numerous honours from Governments and various individuals of several races for his splendid work in rescuing refugees.
The Empress of Australia ws Just preparing to leave at noon for Vancouver, and a large number of foreigners, some visitors and other local residents, were travelling on her to their respective homelands. Tt was a Saturday and the main pier was thronged with those bidding folks on board "bon voyage" and with the Inrge crowds that the beautiful ocean greyhounds of Canada never fail to attract. The day was a lovely early autumn one, the sun bathing all in a harvest glow of shimmering gold. There was nothing whatever to give the slightest indication of the impending blow, except, as some of the cognoscenti afterwards said, that a stiff breeze, not dissimilar to that following on the tail of a typhoon, was blowing.
A dismaying Light Then the pier lurched into the water and everyone was rendered incapable of any other thought but that the apocalyptic end of the world had come. The big Empress, as Captain Robinson afterwards reported aificially, shook and shivered in the most terrifying fashion and rocked so quickly and violently as though the masts and funnels would carried away. The shore-end of the wharf, immediately ahead of the ship to the shore, and a ce siderable portion of the foreshore itself, immediately sank below the water, with only the iron ings and portions of the west si of the wharf showing about water level, over which numbers of people were half-scrambling, and half-wading to the shore, Of the more solid cement part of the wharf where the Empress had tied up, large portions collapsed and immense fissures joceurred, hurling scores of those holding paper streamers in the: hand and bidding goodbye to friends, to death. In one case,'a motor car and its occupants ready to drive off the wharf dropped into a fissure. The bodies were not recovered till long after.
In referring to the work done by' the Empress of Australia which Jsaved a large number of persons, tone cannot forget the sterling services rendered by the Steel Naviga-itor (American), the Andre Lebon (French) ard ' the Korea Maru. (Japanese). Other big boats hastened to Yokohama, such as the President Jefferson, the Empress of Canada and the President Lincoln.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.